


awe

by cautiouslyoptimistic



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27008257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cautiouslyoptimistic/pseuds/cautiouslyoptimistic
Summary: later, when she thinks back on it with a clear head, she realizes it was all really just awe and dazeor, it's love at first sight
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 13
Kudos: 136





	awe

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this was not called awe when I first posted it, but I changed the title cause the other one was lame

Later, when she thinks back on it with a clear head, she realizes it was all really just awe and daze. But in that moment, with that rush of emotion and that heady feeling filling her with euphoria, she would’ve  _ sworn _ it was something else entirely. 

Now, to be quite clear, Waverly is not a hopeless romantic. She’s barely even a cautiously-optimistic romantic. Her idea of love and life had been eroded over the years by an abusive father, an absentee mother, and an AWOL sister. So it’s not as if Waverly spent any of her valuable time on ridiculous childish notions of falling in love. And yet….

And yet when Nicole Haught walked into Shorty’s for the first time, Waverly would swear even now that the stars and planets and very galaxy itself aligned and fell into place, that lightning struck in that moment in that bar, that it was  _ meant to be _ . That it was love at first sight. 

Which is utterly ridiculous of course. Who’d ever heard of something so utterly  _ stupid _ ? 

(She would never admit it to anyone, not even if she was an inch from death and divulging this secret would save her, but she’s always nursed a hope deep down that there’s someone out there made perfectly for her. This imagined person—this formless, faceless person—would be nothing like Champ, calm and caring and kind and  _ present _ , and this person was always, always, a man.

But then Nicole steps into her life, and that person she’s always imagined changes, takes shape, and turns into a red-haired officer with lovely dimpled smiles—a woman who doesn’t know how to wink but whose voice makes Waverly shiver.) 

If she bothers to be honest with herself for a moment, she knows it doesn’t matter what word she assigns to the feelings she feels towards the officer. Awe, daze, fate,  _ love _ —whatever it is, it has Waverly scrambling for paper and pen, scribbling words down as fast as she can, hoping against hope that her hand manages to move as fast as her brain. 

Because Waverly is a  _ writer _ . Or she likes to think so anyway. In a small town, full of small people, it was to books that she turned to get an escape. It was books that saved her when her mother bailed and her sister was gone and her father mistreated her. Books of course inevitably turned to an itch, a need, to create something of her own. And suddenly, years down the line, it’s her writing that’ll be her ticket out of Purgatory, not shifts at the local bar. 

But Nicole has somehow derailed all of Waverly’s best laid plans; simply with a smile, Nicole had managed what thus far only books had ever done for her—she  _ inspires _ her. 

And that’s where the unfortunate rub comes in. Because Waverly’s spent her entire life trying to write the story that’ll get her  _ out _ of Purgatory, to write a story that  _ speaks _ to those stupid judges who can give her the money it takes to get out, but she meets Nicole one afternoon and all thoughts of winning go out the window.

And she’s not really sure what that means at all.

x

She can’t really remember a time she  _ didn’t _ write. 

In some form or fashion, it was a part of her. As a child, it consisted of making up stories and acting them out in her barn, trying to ignore Willa’s taunts and her father’s alcohol-soaked stench. Then, when she was alone and safe with Gus and Curtis and the worst thing she had to deal with was Champ’s arm over her shoulder, she found herself dealing with her darkest emotions (the heartbreak, the unfair thoughts, the  _ anger _ ) by letting it all out in a small diary she carried around, siphoning off the crud regularly so that she could remain the bubbly, cheerful, happy girl that people saw. 

And then Curtis is gone and Wynonna is back and in between the chaos and grief, Waverly just...stops. The words cease to come. For athletes, it’s called a career ending injury. For writers...well, she’s unsure what it’s called when you lose the one thing that drives you to write—whether it’s called inspiration, motivation, drive, or love. 

(She thinks she’s broken. It used to be that writing a story enabled her to deal with whatever she was feeling, regardless of what she was feeling. 

But she’s unsure how one is supposed to write about emptiness. About a lack of feeling at all.) 

She can’t remember a time she  _ didn’t  _ write—at least, not anytime before the past year. Because a year ago—for reasons she still doesn’t quite understand—her ink pen ran dry (metaphorically and literally), and that was that. 

The words no longer came. 

(She couldn’t express her elation at finally being free of Champ, or the pain of losing Curtis. 

She didn’t know how to put into words that she felt so  _ small _ , ordinary and unnecessary in a vast universe in which everyone had a place and purpose except for her. 

She didn’t know how to say she was lonely, how to let go of the hurt of not being enough, not being enough, not being enough. 

Not for anyone—after all, maybe if she had been enough, they would stay.) 

Waverly is a  _ writer _ . She likes to think so anyway. And writing had always been her ticket out of Purgatory. No one is  _ meant _ to hold so much within themselves, at least Waverly doesn’t think so. It’s meant to be expressed and then shared, a call out into the vast expanse, hoping against hope there’s a response, a tiny voice like her own calling out,  _ yes, yes I feel that way too, I understand _ . 

So it’s alarming, to say the least, because when the words go, so does Waverly’s ticket. So does her chance of being understood. And so does, apparently, her sanity.

“Do you normally sit outside in freezing temperatures for long periods of time, or am I missing something?” comes Nicole Haught’s beautiful voice, just the right balance of teasing and concern in her tone. Waverly doesn’t turn, but she can feel Nicole’s warmth seep into her as she joins her on the park bench, their sides pressed together. It takes a nudge against her shoulder for Waverly to realize that Nicole had come bearing gifts: a hot cup of tea and some sort of pastry. 

“What do you do when you can’t do the thing you love anymore?” Waverly asks as she accepts the tea, grateful for its warmth. 

If Nicole is perturbed in any way by this sudden topic, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she bites her lip in careful thought, head tilting to the side as she considers the question. “I think,” she begins slowly, taking care in her words, “it depends on what the thing you love is.” Nicole gives Waverly a dimpled smile, and for a moment Waverly’s brain goes blank. “What’s going on, Waves?”

(They’re not friends, not exactly. Nicole spends most of her time shadowing Nedley, and if Chrissy is to be believed, is well on her way to replace the aging Sheriff. 

But every now and then, besides the awkward exchanges of ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye,’ they chat. And those short but memorable times are quickly becoming the highlight of Waverly’s week. Which, in and of itself, is telling.) 

“There’s, um, this writing competition,” Waverly explains, handing the tea back to Nicole so that she can dig through her pockets and pull out a crumpled piece of paper that has seen far better days. “The prize money isn’t a lot, but between it and my savings...If I won, Nicole, I could  _ go _ . Finally go to grad school, or travel the world, or  _ whatever _ . But I can’t write anymore.”

“You’re a writer?” Nicole asks, sounding amazed. It makes Waverly angry, as irrational as that is. 

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I can’t do it anymore. So no, I’m not a writer.”

“Well, why not?”

“Why not, what?”

“Why can’t you write?”

(Leave it to Nicole to go to the heart of the issue immediately. 

Leave it to Nicole to be blunt, to question, to  _ challenge _ , to look at Waverly as though she’s seeing right through her and then  _ actually _ see right through her.)

“I don’t know. But Wynonna says it’s emotional constipation,” Waverly finds herself saying without thinking, wrinkling her nose a little bit as she takes back her tea. 

Nicole... _ laughs _ .

“Well, Wynonna would know a good bit about that, wouldn’t she?” she says, still chuckling. “How about this. You come over to my place with some of your work. Say...around seven? I’ll make you dinner and we can go through your stories, see if we can’t get you out of your funk.” 

Waverly nearly chokes on her tea. 

“You d-don’t mean...it’s not—like a date?” she stutters, cheeks flaming and feeling much warmer than the tea alone could justify. She watches as Nicole smiles, looking terribly pleased with herself, shrugging inelegantly and making it seem so  _ cool _ . 

“Well, if you want to call it that, sure,” she says, getting to her feet.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Back to the station,” she answers breezily, leaving Waverly’s pastry on the bench. “See you tonight, Waves.”

And then she’s gone. 

And Waverly’s heart just won’t stop racing. 

x

She chickens out, last minute. Blames it on Wynonna and how she has to be there for her sister.

Even through text, it’s obvious Nicole knows she’s lying.

x

The next time she sees Nicole, it’s several days after she essentially stands the officer up. She catches a glimpse of Nicole from the bar window, watching out of the corner of her eye as Nicole speaks with the grocer across the street, a gentle smile on her face. 

She feels it then, that itch. That  _ need _ . It’s as familiar a feeling as that warmth that settles into your chest when you walk through the door after getting home. It feels a little bit like a friend, like a soft blanket getting draped over you. But it also feels...different. Like when you go away for a long time and when you come back home the smell is off and the placement of furniture seems strange. 

Normally the itch is accompanied by words. A sentence, a phrase, sometimes even an entire scene. It bleeds from her fingers without her control, flowing out desperately and without abandon. But this time, this time all she has is the itch and something else, something she’s not quite sure about. (She thinks it feels a lot like...bit  _ no _ , that isn’t possible.)

Waverly watches Nicole a little longer, wanting to puzzle it out, but right as she thinks she’s about to put her finger on it, Nicole turns around and catches her gaze. One second, then two, pass, and Waverly’s mind goes blank when Nicole makes her way to the bar.

( _ It’s fine _ , she thinks when Nicole just stops in to say hello and get a promise that Waverly will try to not stand her up again,  _ the puzzle can wait. _ ) 

x

A week later, she finds herself at Nicole’s, sitting at the kitchen table across from Nicole, cradling a bottle of beer and anxiously watching Nicole as she flips through the large stack of papers Waverly had shoved into her arms upon arriving. 

(She doesn’t really know what she’s doing here, why she finally gave in. All she knows is that Nedley told Wynonna it was Nicole’s day off today, and suddenly Waverly wanted nothing more than to be where Nicole was.

She regrets it a little bit now, of course, having underestimated just how vulnerable it would make her feel to show her work to anyone—her words, on display, with  _ her name _ and  _ person _ attached to it. After all, this isn’t like anonymously sending a story to a writing competition or even like the fanfiction that’s her guilty pleasure, hidden behind screennames and the ability to just...log off. 

No, this is  _ real _ . And it’s so  _ terrifying _ .)

“Waverly,” Nicole breathes as she takes a pause from her reading, looking up with an awed expression, “this is  _ really _ good. It’s beautiful.” 

“That was last year’s submission,” Waverly admits, not responding to Nicole’s compliment, unsure how to, “it didn’t win of course.” She takes back the story Nicole was reading, tries to grab the rest, but Nicole stops her, pulling the stories back towards herself and resuming her flipping.

“These are all romance,” she says suddenly, sounding vaguely surprised. “I didn’t peg you as the secret romantic type.” 

It’s a joke. Waverly  _ knows _ it’s a joke. But it rankles her all the same.

“I’m not,” she snaps, this time getting no resistance when she grabs her stack of papers back from Nicole. “I don’t like romance.”

“This doesn’t read like someone who doesn’t like the genre, Waves,” Nicole tries gently.

“Every year, the romance genre wins,” Waverly says heatedly, not meeting Nicole’s eyes. “Every single year. So I thought, well if I can’t beat them, I’ll join them. I  _ need _ that award, Nicole.” She swallows hard and looks up, feeling that same itch, that lovely itch, when she sees Nicole’s soft expression. “But it’s useless. I can’t write anymore.” 

There’s a long pause, so long that Waverly thinks she somehow offended Nicole, but then: “So what genre do you like to write? Let me guess. Horror?” 

It’s such a strange question because Waverly doesn’t really think about genres in that way. Everything is mixed in together, with aspects of every genre sometimes making their way through the pages of a story. And yet, it’s also something no one has ever asked her. She doesn’t know how to explain it, but that Nicole thought to ask something like this? That she cares? Somehow it makes the weirdness she feels for the officer settle in, become permanent, and that itch suddenly feels overwhelming. 

“I like mystery,” she says after a second, eyeing Nicole to gauge her reaction. “Especially if it’s historical fiction. The research, pulling the puzzle pieces together? I love all that.” 

“Then why not write a mystery short story for the competition?” Nicole asks, looking honestly confused and Waverly feels the urge to kiss her. It’s rather shocking, really. She’s never felt that urge before, not even in the very beginning with Champ when she was  _ sure _ she loved him. 

“Mystery never wins,” Waverly explains, dropping her stories onto the table and perhaps not so subtly moving closer to Nicole, her chair making a horrendous noise on the tile as she drags it. “The max word count is too low, not enough to build a good mystery.” 

Nicole frowns at that, her eyes landing on the stack of stories. “You know,” she says slowly, as if deep in thought and choosing her words carefully, “I was on track to be a professional soccer player, but I  _ loved _ the idea of being a cop too much.” She looks over at Waverly with a smile. “I think you could win writing anything, Waves. I think you could write about grass growing and it would be amazing. So why not just write the thing you love? Write for yourself for a change, not for what you think some judge wants.” Her smile widens. “Take it from me, doing the thing you love will get you to exactly where you didn’t know you needed to be.” 

(Waverly’s heart pounds in her chest.

She feels the itch, it’s there. And that last puzzle piece finally fits into place and she sees the big picture.)

“You’re smarter than you look,” Waverly jokes, and because she wants to, and because she thinks maybe Nicole wants to as well, she leans in, so close that she can feel Nicole’s breath on her lips. 

Nicole’s thumb gently brushes over her wrist, their noses brush, and her heart pounds away so loudly she’s sure Nicole can hear it when finally,  _ finally _ , their lips meet. And see, Waverly kisses Nicole for the first time and it feels right, it feels like she got to the place she didn’t know she needed to be.

Because Nicole kisses her, and it makes Waverly want to write  _ poetry. _

x

“You going to hang out with Red again, baby girl?” Wynonna asks as Waverly puts her coat on, rushing just a little bit because she’s running late. She’d been jotting down an outline for a potential story, and had lost track of time as she struggled with it. 

“I’ll be back later,” Waverly just says, pretending not to hear when her sister scoffs and mumbles something about heart-eyes. 

And later, when Waverly is in Nicole’s arms, she marvels at just how easy it is to fall in love. 

x

The deadline for the competition comes and goes, Waverly’s computer screen still stubbornly blank. Then again, she doesn’t even notice. 

Not in between the lunches with Nicole at the station, the sneaky kisses during their breaks, the way Nicole cradles her cheeks before their lips meet (as if she’s something important,  _ precious _ ), or the nights they spend wrapped up in each other.

She’s never experienced this before, this feeling. This consuming desire to know more, to hear  _ more _ , not because she thinks it may be good for character building but because she just wants to know Nicole. She wants to understand what makes her tick, what gets her blood boiling, what makes her laugh, what it is that has her looking at Nedley with a strange forlorn expression. 

(She wants to know Nicole’s opinions on soulmates, on the meaning of life, if there are aliens out there, on Nedley’s hair.

She even wants to know all the boring stuff, like pets she had growing up, what she studied, if she ever was religious, if she had thoughts about marriage.

She wants to know Nicole, and in turn Nicole wants to know about her, and never in her life has Waverly experienced  _ this _ . A person who listened to all her darkest thoughts, who soothed all her most painful emotions, who did so without judgment, without complaint; a person for whom  _ Waverly _ could do the same.)

The competition deadline comes and goes, and Waverly doesn’t notice. Mostly because, for the first time ever, she feels at home.

x

She finishes it days before Nicole’s birthday. 

It’s far too long to be eligible for any competition, but that doesn’t matter to her anymore. After all, she has a check waiting to be cashed in her purse, the text of her book deal still open on her laptop from when she’d seen it and promptly called Wynonna and screamed into her ear. 

Nicole has been so patient in the last year, never commenting when Waverly would rush off to write something, never complaining when she’d run late because she lost track of time or when she became moody because she was having trouble with the words. 

She wonders sometimes if Nicole knows how much she loves her.

“Waves,” Nicole says as she comes down the stairs, sighing dramatically, “since it’s my birthday, can I just ask for what I want? That thing last Christmas was—oh, hello.” Nicole stops at the foot of the stairs, noticing for the first time that the Homestead is full of people.

“Do tell, Haughty,” Wynonna says dangerously, “what did my baby sister give you last Christmas?” 

“A mug,” Waverly snaps, waiting until only Wynonna and Nicole are in earshot before adding, “and a lapdance.” Nicole goes scarlet as Wynonna groans, mumbling about hearing it and now not being able to  _ unsee _ it, and Waverly takes the opportunity to grab Nicole by the hand and lead her outside. 

“I know you and your sister tell each other everything but if you could avoid giving her reasons to want to kill me—”

“—she’s just pretending to be tough, you big baby,” Waverly laughs, grinning further when Nicole rolls her eyes and pulls her in for a kiss. Then a second. Then… “Stop, stop, wait. I didn’t bring you out here to make out.”

“It’s my birthday,” Nicole says, her voice deeper suddenly, and it’s Waverly’s turn to go scarlet. A year, and still her heart raced. A year, and still Nicole could take her breath away. 

“I know, I’m trying to give you your present.” 

“What is it that you have to give it out here?” Nicole asks. “Is it—” She falls silent at Waverly’s look, sitting down as Waverly digs through the bag she had left out on the porch earlier. Waverly makes painstakingly slow work of it, just to build the suspense, then pulls out and hands over the bound stack of paper to Nicole. “What’s this?” she asks, a small smile on her face. “ _ Home _ ,” Nicole reads on the cover, “a novel by... _ Waverly Earp _ .” When she looks up and meets Waverly’s eyes, her expression is  _ dazzling _ and it takes a moment for Waverly to get her head together.

“It’s about a disgraced detective who’s been demoted after supposedly bungling up a murder investigation by accusing the wrong man,” Waverly says softly. “But she knows she’s right, so she’s been working on the case ever since. And along the way, she maybe falls in love with the murder victim’s ex-girlfriend and the number one suspect, a historian working at the museum where the victim was killed.” 

“You wrote a novel,” Nicole breathes, looking and sounding  _ oh so proud _ . “A mystery novel about a  _ cop _ .”

“A  _ hot  _ cop,” Waverly corrects, laughing. “I wrote about what I love, that’s all.”

“That’s so cheesy, Waves,” Nicole says, but there are tears in her eyes as she flips to the first page, the dedication. 

_ For Nicole. I’m at the place I didn’t know I needed to be; I’m with you.  _

**Author's Note:**

> come bully me into reposting fics I didn't want to repost on tumblr @c-optimistic 
> 
> (disclaimer: that's a joke!)


End file.
